[Peace-discuss] Fw: [gangboxnews] Overton Window: A Concept in Political Theory

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From: wilsoncharless 
To: gangboxnews at yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Monday, November 16, 2009 12:13 PM
Subject: [gangboxnews] Overton Window: A Concept in Political Theory


  

Overton Window
Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
The Overton window is a concept in political theory, named after its originator, Joe Overton, former vice president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. It describes a "window" in the range of public reactions to ideas in public discourse, in a spectrum of all possible options on an issue.
The Overton Window, Illustrated.
Details
Overton described a method for moving that window, thereby including previously excluded ideas, while excluding previously acceptable ideas. The technique relies on people promoting ideas even less acceptable than the previous "outer fringe" ideas. That makes those old fringe ideas look less extreme, and thereby acceptable. The idea is that priming the public with fringe ideas intended to be and remain unacceptable, will make the real target ideas seem more acceptable by comparison.
The degrees of acceptance of public ideas can be described roughly as:
Unthinkable
Radical
Acceptable
Sensible
Popular
Policy
The Overton Window is a means of visualizing which ideas define that range of acceptance by where they fall in it, and add! ing new ideas that can push the old ideas towards acceptance merely by making the limits more extreme.
Further reading
Tullock, Gordon (1967). Politics of Persuasion. 
Slippery slope
An Introduction to the Overton Window of Political Possibilities
2006 Daily Kos article on the Overton window
2009 Daily Kos article on the Overton window
W3C and the Overton window - includes a clear explanation

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